Konami

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Konami is a popular Tokyo-based maker of video games, toys and trading cards, founded in 1969 as a jukebox rental and repair business in Osaka, Japan. Konami was one of the leading third-party developers during the NES era, with such best-selling games as Gradius, Contra and Metal Gear. It is currently the fourth-largest game company in Japan, behind Nintendo, Sega Sammy and Namco Bandai.

Due to Nintendo's restrictions on third-party licensing during that era, Konami could release only five games per year for the NES. Konami found a way around this by creating a quasi-independent subsidiary known as "Ultra Games", which published the first Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles game, Skate or Die, Metal Gear, and an expanded version of Gyruss, among others. (They made a similar move in Europe with Palcom Software Ltd.) After Nintendo relaxed its standards, Konami closed Ultra in 1992 and absorbed its remaining employees into its American branch. Some of the other Konami staff left that same year to create Treasure Co. Ltd., a company well known for its fast-paced shooters (Gunstar Heroes, Radiant Silvergun, Ikaruga, etc.) Konami also owns a majority stake in Hudson Soft (recently Hudson became a wholly owned subsidiary), though the latter still operates more or less independently.

In the mid-80s, Konami became famous by one of their Classic Cheat Codes, dubbed the "Konami Code". First appearing to US players in the 1986 NES port of Gradius and made popular in the 1988 NES port of Contra, it provided the players of the notoriously-difficult game with 30 lives, rather than the original 3. Due to the game's popularity, the Konami Code now enjoys a pop-culture status on par with the famous 'XYZZY' keyword from Colossal Cave Adventure -- mention the 'Konami Code', and it's a sure bet than any console gamer worth his eyeteeth will know exactly which code you mean.

Fast forward to 2012, Konami's reputation nose dives into a shockingly low state. While the company avoided the DLC/online pass related ire that's become all too common in modern gaming, they made up for it with their abysmal publishing decisions throughout 2011-2012, which can be summed up as Konami not giving a damn to hilariously awful levels. The highlights include releasing the Metal Gear Solid HD collection the same day as mega hit Modern Warfare 3, releasing three separate Silent Hill games within a mere three week span, several games around this time not having enough copies during launch day, the company not advertising games from new franchises at all, switching release dates for games unannounced, and releasing deeply flawed "remasters" of the three main Silent Hill games, despite being aware of the ports' dubious quality prior to release.

In 2015, the company announced they were ceasing their console gaming involvement to concentrate on their mobile games and their non-video gaming ventures, like slot machines and pachinko. That's after Silent Hills was cancelled and Hideo Kojima left Konami.

In no way related to the Konata/Kagami pairing of Lucky Star, or to a certain character named Konami, or to any kind of "economy".


Konami is responsible for the following video game franchises:


Licensed Games:


Anime series produced/sponsored by Konami:

Names associated with Konami:


Konami provides examples of the following tropes: